Friday, November 18, 2011

she was so alive with joy

I served a lot of customers yesterday. Actually I've served a lot of customers all week.
Where are all you people coming from?
We checkout people barely have time to take a sip of water in between customers lately.
This type of rush usually happens closer to Christmas..............

Anyway, back to yesterday.
One customer in particular stood out from the crowd.

A young woman, maybe 20 or so........
Her face was so alive with joy and excitement
She had the biggest grin and was doing little happy dance jigs while I processed her goods.

I said to her, "you look a little excited"And she replied, "I am, I've just bought a Christmas tree and I can't wait to get home to it".Me: Is it your first Christmas tree?Customer: yes, my partner and I have just moved in together.....

Well, that certainly explained the happy dancing!
New relationship, new home together, first Christmas tree....
I wish them well, I truly do.

16 comments:

I especially remember the first real Christmas tree we put up for our daughter...great memory...thanks. I often think check out folk must be grateful for a cheerful customer. When I wait in line it seems so many are grumpy.

Sorry you don't even get time for a sip of water. Oh yes, I can even smell the pine needles after we brought our first tree in the house. We were married in November, only knew each other 5 months, so everything was new. Gads, I must have a good "rememberer" to remember back that far. :)

Ok firstly the practicalities out of the way. Hydration - I had a conversation with a friend of mine who works at a supermarket and her voice was dry, she was ill. She went to her doctors and he said she was ill because she wasn't dehydrated. She spke to her colleagues at work and her team leader and it transpired that whilst she had been off sick. There had been a directive from above to instruct staff to make time to drink enough water during the busy periods as they genuinely felt it made for happier, healthier staff. Ok what they really meant were happier generally healthier staff have less sick time off thus increasing the company profits. Enough said, is my guess suffice to say please take a little moment in time to drink plenty and often. For your own sake actually and not the company profit!

Oh yes oh yes I do remember and thankfully each year husband and I do keep this one ritual even if the majority of the others have sadly fallen by the wayside after 24 years of marriage. He was the first person I had ever bought a Christmas Tree with all those years ago.

The other ritual was from childhood and is also about Christmas Trees, spent with my father taking ages to choose the tree, live from a local wood which the local farmer gave us permission to choose from.

Both long standing happy rituals, one of them ongoing, yay. Lucky me.

Thank you for this post reminding me on a particularly sad day that life is not all doom and gloom.

EC; it was so lovely to see such excitement in the middle of the day in the middle of the week.

Delores; Our first christmas tree as a married couple was a small white plastic one with pink tinsel. It was awful, but he was away from home anyway so it didn'r seem to matter. I remember the first Christmas tree my daughter saw was surrounded by the playpen to keep her away from the ornaments.

Manzanita; Normally there's plenty of time for a drink, most of us keep a bottle of water at the checkout. My point was that there are so many more customers than is usual for November. I've never had a "real" christmas tree, always artificial, carefully packed away each year to be brought out again the next christmas.

Achelois; we do make time to drink, most of us keep a bottle of water at the checkout and I've been know to say "I'll just be a second" to the next customer, then guzzle down a few mouthfuls. The point I was trying to make is that there are just so many customers, which is a little unusual for November. I still put up a tree every year too, but living alone and going somewhere else for Christmas day I wonder why I bother.

peskypixies; the girl was clearly happily in love with both life and partner.